Deuteronomy 28:28

Deuteronomy 28:28

The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

a. ASV: Jehovah will smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;  [Thomas Nelson & Sons first published the American Standard Version in 1901. This translation of the Bible is in the public domain.]

b. YLT: 'Jehovah doth smite thee with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart;  [The Young's Literal Translation was translated by Robert Young, who believed in a strictly literal translation of God's word. This version of the Bible is in the public domain.]

c. Classic Amplified:  The Lord will smite you with madness and blindness and dismay of [mind and] heart. [Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation]

d. NLT: The LORD will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic.  [Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.]

e. The Israel Bible: HASHEM will strike you with madness, blindness, and dismay.  [The English Translation was adapted by Israel 365 from the JPS Tanakh. Copyright Ⓒ 1985 by the Jewish Publication Society. All rights reserved.]

f. Stone Edition THE CHUMASH, Rabbinic Commentary: HASHEM will strike you with madness and blindness, and with confounding of the heart.  [The Artscroll Series/Stone Edition, THE CHUMASH Copyright 1998, 2000 by MESORAH PUBLICATIONS, Ldt.]

1. “The LORD shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:”

a. [The] LORD [Strong: 3068 Yhovah yeh-ho-vaw' from 1961; (the) self-Existent or Eternal; Jehovah, Jewish national name of God:--Jehovah, the Lord.]

b. [shall] smite [thee] [Strong: 5221 nakah naw-kaw' a primitive root; to strike (lightly or severely, literally or figuratively):--beat, cast forth, clap, give (wounds), X go forward, X indeed, kill, make (slaughter), murderer, punish, slaughter, slay(-er, -ing), smite(-r, -ing), strike, be stricken, (give) stripes, X surely, wound.]         

c. [with] madness [Strong: 7697 shigga`own shig-gaw-yone' from 7696; craziness:--furiously, madness.]

d. [and] blindness [Strong: 5788 `ivvarown iv-vaw-rone' and (feminine) avvereth {av-veh'-reth}; from 5787; blindness:--blind(-ness).]

e. [and] astonishment [Strong: 8541 timmahown tim-maw-hone' from 8539; consternation:--astonishment.]

f. [of] heart [Strong: 3824 lebab lay-bawb' from 3823; the heart (as the most interior organ); used also like 3820:--+ bethink themselves, breast, comfortably, courage, ((faint), (tender-)heart((-ed)), midst, mind, X unawares, understanding.]

1). Troy Edwards, The Permissive Sense: Most people have read this list (Deuteronomy 28:16-68) with the erroneous idea that God will use His divine creative power to bring about these curses. Nevertheless, when we use the principle of interpreting the Bible with the Bible, we learn that these curses will come because God is  forsaking His people and withdrawing His protection. 

a). Deuteronomy 31:16-18 And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land, whither they go to be among them, and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.

31:17 Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them; so that they will say in that day, Are not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?

31:18 And I will surely hide my face in that day for all the evils which they shall have wrought, in that they are turned unto other gods.

2). Edward Williams, Predestination and Election Considered: explaining to his listeners how the Hebrew idiom of permission will keep us away from an erroneous interpretation of Scripture that would otherwise cast aspersions on God’s character. After all, it may be objected, that the Scriptures ascribe to God the causation of moral evil; as hardening the heart of Pharaoh, hardening whom he will, making the wicked for the day of evil, appointing to destruction, determining the death of Christ, delivering him by determinate counsel, doing all evil in a city, making, making vessels to dishonor, fitting them for destruction, &c. In reply to this objection it must be considered, that whatever the import of such representations may be, no interpretation which is unworthy of God can be the true meaning, at the idioms of the sacred languages ascribing cause or operation to God must be understood according to the nature of the subject, and, what is particularly to our purpose, that active verbs which denote making, bring, causing, and the like, often denote a declaration of the thing done, or that shall take place; or a permission of it. (Taken from Troy J. Edwards, The Hebrew Idiom of Permission.)